Asian mar­kets strug­gle

THE dol­lar rose in Asia yes­ter­day as the chances of an in­ter­est rate hike were fur­ther boosted, while most mar­kets re­cov­ered from early losses to track a Wall Street lead higher.

US mar­kets ral­lied on Oc­to­ber 24 on the back of an­other up­beat round of cor­po­rate earn­ings and a pro­vi­sional read­ing that showed ac­tiv­ity in the US man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor ex­panded at a faster rate than ex­pected.

That came as St Louis Fed­eral Re­serve Pres­i­dent James Bullard said De­cem­ber was “most likely” the best time for a tight­en­ing of bor­row­ing costs. And Fed Bank of Chicago Pres­i­dent Charles Evans said he saw three hikes by the end of next year.

“Bullard did not mince words and ex­plic­itly gave the green light for a De­cem­ber lift-off, but sug­gested that the longer-term rate cy­cle is much lower,” Stephen Innes, a se­nior trader at OANDA, said in a note.

The Fed meets next month but is ex­pected to stand pat as that comes days be­fore the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion.

The weaker yen gave fur­ther sup­port to Ja­pan’s strug­gling ex­porters, lift­ing the Nikkei 0.6 per­cent to a six-month high.

“With the US econ­omy look­ing solid and a rate hike by year-end loom­ing in in­vestors’ minds, the yen is weak­en­ing, and boost­ing ex­pec­ta­tions for a re­cov­ery in earn­ings in the sec­ond half of the year,” Toshi­hiko Mat­suno, a se­nior strate­gist at SMBC Friend Se­cu­ri­ties Co. in Tokyo said.

Among other mar­kets Syd­ney rose 0.6pc, Shang­hai added 0.1pc and Sin­ga­pore was slightly higher in late trade. There were also pos­i­tive fin­ishes in Welling­ton and Taipei.

But Hong Kong closed 0.2pc lower and Seoul shed 0.5pc.

Oil traders were mov­ing un­easily on wor­ries about an agreed out­put cut by OPEC and Rus­sia, with com­ments from Iraq’s oil min­is­ter that it should be ex­empt fu­elling con­cerns over whether the deal can be im­ple­mented. –